Category: Dating

The first thing I noticed about him was his height. He was tall. Not freakishly so, but tall enough to make my knees a little weak. We talked a bit of shop over oysters and Manhattans. His job, of course, was more interesting than mine so we mostly talked about him. His career seemed dreamy – filled with music and big names. His brown eyes made me blush and the whiskey made me slutty. Naturally, I found myself back at his apartment.

He was a lot older than me – nearly twice my age. He lived in a tiny studio apartment on the east side of town. It was more or less a janitor’s closet with a kitchen. It was cheaply renovated and featured the same flashy fake marble flooring I had in my apartment. He didn’t have any furniture. The only place to sit was on a thin mattress that looked like it came off of a futon. A couple of pillows and some crumbled sheets were laying on top of it. “Oh, that must be the bed” I muddled under my breath. We met online – Tinder more specifically. I really shouldn’t have given him the benefit of the doubt after seeing his apartment. But he was handsome, and I’m recklessly shallow – so I stayed.

He took me up to the roof of his apartment and kissed me slowly – thoughtfully. When he pulled away and I looked up towards the sky, I could actually see a few stars. Inside, he poured me wine and told me stories about being a teenager in the nineties. It made him seem so cool in a way I’m embarrassed to admit. I Imagined him and his friends being like the cool kids in the teen dramas I would watch on tv as a child and it made me weirdly envious.

Just before I let myself get swept up by his cool charm, I noticed something odd. He really liked feet. He touched my feet more than anything on my body and although I would try to politely wiggle them away – he would always find them. “Sorry, I have kind of a fetish.” He giggled mischievously. “Oh, I don’t mind.” I lied, giggling back. I thought it was weird, but it was still better than watching New Girl alone in my apartment, surrounded by cats.

I went out with him again. We had a nice dinner and laughed and talked like old friends. He was incredibly hyperactive. He had such a surprising amount of energy that I wondered if he needed adult Ritalin. People who can’t still generally make me very anxious but I felt at ease with him for some reason. I trusted that because he was much older than me, that he was the level headed man I needed in my life. Then, he finished the evening on my feet.

“Well, at least it wasn’t on your face.” I have always loved my cousin’s strong sense of reason. “But my feet…isn’t that kind of weird?” Foot fetishes were a new topic for my circle of friends. We mostly all had the same confused reaction like, why feet? and honestly I still don’t know. He didn’t either – because I asked him. Even though I was slightly horrified by the mental image of him sucking on my toes, I went out with him again. New York City has significantly lowered my standards.

On our third date, we ate Indian and his eyes swelled up like grapefruits. Not from the Indian but from my cat, Pippin, who had decided to curl up on his face while I was in the other room. He didn’t even push him off – he just let it happen. He just sat still on my couch, with a cat wrapped around his face, well-knowing he was allergic to cats. It should have been a red flag. He still managed to be charming though, even through the sniffles and coughs. He left my feet alone, and I was incredibly relieved. We spent a lovely evening together, but the morning would prove to be much different.

In the middle of the night something truly disturbing happened. I woke up and skipped out of bed and into the bathroom. I looked down just before I disrobed and what I saw horrified me. There, in my toilet, lay a gigantic, disintegrating turd. I nearly vomited. My roommate still wasn’t home from being out the night before so it couldn’t have been anybody else. I flushed it down and shoved my head in a towel and screamed. I walked back into my room like nothing had happened. I climbed into bed and tried desperately not to wake him. He rolled over and put his arm around me, pulling me closer. I wanted to climb out of my skin.

Just before he left, he kissed me on the cheek and called me kiddo. I shuttered. We didn’t speak again after that. We didn’t need to. I was lonely from my last break up and looking for love in all of the wrong places. Fortunately enough it was not with a middle-aged man with a foot fetish.